Eve Online players raised more than $100,000 in memory of a developer

Update, January 19, 2018: Eve Online players raised nearly $120,000 in memory of a CCP developer who died last year.

The Eve Online community have raised just under $120,000 in memory of CCP Blaze, a senior software engineer who died in 2017. CCP organised a fundraiser in his name in the wake of his death, to raise money for his fiancee and daughter. It ran from December 12 to December 19 last year.

In an announcement this afternoon, CCP says that “the response was astonishing, unparalled in the history of fundraisers hosted by CCP, and incredibly humbling” and confirmed that the donations from the sale of ‘Blaze’ Squadron skins totalled $119,828.50. That equates to more than 3.7 billion Plex, Eve’s in-game currency, or around 620 years of in-game time.

CCP confirm that “this is the second-largest CCP hosted fundraiser that the EVE Community has contributed to,” larger than all but one of the PLEX for GOOD drives.

Original story, December 12, 2017:CCP have a touching tribute in store for a departed member of the Eve Online development team. The senior software engineer known as CCP Blaze passed away on November 14 at the age of 35, while vacationing in London in celebration of his recent engagement.

“Over the course of the last three weeks,” say the team, “the development team here at CCP have said goodbye to Blaze in our own way, hosting our own internal fundraiser and supporting his family, friends and co-workers as best as possible at this difficult time. Alongside supporting those left behind, we feel that’s it’s also incredibly important to honour those lost and the incredible work and creativity they share with us.”

To that end, they’re releasing a new SKIN set today memorialising Blaze. All proceeds from the sales of this set will go to support his fiancée and their one-year-old daughter.

A 495 PLEX bundle will be available for the Barghest, Cerberus, Hurricane, Ishtar, and Oracle hulls. It will also be available separately for the Armageddon hull – Blaze’s favourite – for 110 PLEX. These items are available now, and will be until scheduled downtime on December 19. After that, they will never be sold again.

CCP are also writing Blaze into the Eve Online backstory in the description for the SKIN. With that description is an in-universe quote: “Gone, but never forgotten. His name lives on in all of you. Hoist his colours, and decimate anything that stands in your way.”

A thread on the Eve subreddit about the news is currently filled with nothing but salutes to Blaze.